Canon Sees Nikon DSLRs, Raises With 1DX Mark II 4K Behemoth

Canon DSLR fan feeling left out in the cold after CES? Take heart, the company wasn’t going to let Nikon steal the flagship spotlight with the D5/D500 announcement. The company is unwrapping its flagship DSLR and showing off serious internal specs.

It also makes my Nikon D3300 shrink back in awe. Hey, I’m learning. Not about to drop $6k on a camera body while still chasing after my dogs and trying to convince Lightning it’s just a damn camera.

In live view mode, the camera can shoot at 16fps storing 170 RAW photos before the CFast 2.0 card questions wth you’re shooting exactly. The frames-per-second dip to 14 in standard continuous shooting.

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The Canon 1D X Mark II has a full frame 20.2 megapixel CMOS sensor. ISO range sits at 100 to 51200 (expandable to 409600). That’s a bit disappointing when comparing to the Nikon D5 range, but real-world testing will be the true test of the usable ISO range between the two.

Autofocus relies on a larger 61-point AF II system with 41 cross-type points. Improvements over the original 1DX have a coverage area that’s around 8.6% larger at the top and bottom of the CF area and 24% larger in the peripheral frame.

Canon 1DX Mark II Video

While it’s a camera, it feels like Canon sees the push Sony and Nikon are making and is jumping in. 4K video at 60fps. You didn’t read that wrong. 60fps. The original 1DX? 60 frames were reserved for 1080p.

In addition to the 4K at 60fps, Canon added exFAT support. No more 4GB limits on videos without having to stitch them together. It will be interesting to see how it handles dispersing heat when shooting 4K for extended periods of time.

While shooting in 4K, the 1DX Mark II allows for 8.8MP still frame grabs. Slow motion fan? 1080p at 120fps.

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The LCD screen is getting an upgrade in Canon’s new flagship. Its 3.2-inch LCD is now a touchscreen – something not available on the old 1DX. On the 1DX Mark II, the viewfinder is upgraded to the Intelligent Viewfinder II. You can make changes in the settings without taking your eye off the subject. Red AF points are used to help in darker settings.

In the viewfinder, you can immediately see the electronic levels, AF details, white balance, metering, flicker detection and grid.

Wow Me Canon

Ok, plenty of features to justify the $6,000 price tag. But, give me something Canon. Impress me. The company is answering with built-in image optimization. Don’t read that as stabilization.

Canon’s Digital Lens Optimization stores information about the optical flaws of lenses and digitally fixes the problem on the fly. Wait, no more fixing profiles in Lightroom? It’s a first for a Canon EOS DSLR and automatically corrects for peripheral brightness, chromatic aberration, distortion and diffraction.

And there’s the wow factor. No more remembering to correct the lens profile in post-production. It’ll be interesting to see how well that works when compared to dedicated post-production software and Canon handling the images on the fly.